Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer

Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer

Unlike most school safety legislation introduced afterward the Newtown shootings, which chosen for increased security measures and beefing up school police force forces, a beak past one California assemblyman takes a unlike tack: It seeks to limit the police role on schoolhouse campuses.

Concerned about an overreaction to the shootings, Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, introduced Assembly Beak 549, which would encourage school districts to clarify the roles of school police, limiting them to handling unsafe or physically violent situations. The legislation calls for the roles of counselors, administrators, teachers and police to be outlined in schoolhouse districts' safety plans.

Jones-Sawyer's bill has been sponsored by groups such as The Labor Community Strategy Center and the Youth Justice Coalition, both based in Los Angeles, and the national Children's Defense Fund. These groups advocate moving abroad from zero-tolerance discipline policies toward dealing with the root causes of bad behavior. More counselors, not more law, are what is needed, they say.

Many schools, particularly high schools, take full-time police on campus. Often it is not articulate when a misbehaving student crosses the line into criminal activity. But if police practise get involved in routine disciplinary matters, students are more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system than if the issue were handled by a counselor or ambassador, advocates say.

"After the Sandy Hook shootings, we wanted to get ahead of some of the more harmful proposals," said Zoe Rawson, a spokesperson for the Community Rights Campaign, which is function of the The Labor Community Strategy Center.

In an article on the website of the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative news organization, Jones-Sawyer explains why he introduced the bill.

"This is non anti-law. I do believe in that location is a role for public safe on campuses," he said. "But before we get the guns and guards out, let's get some mental wellness (care) in in that location for students."

"There should exist guidelines for when you don't need constabulary involved in subject area," he said.

However, the bill has been substantially changed past the Assembly Appropriations Committee and has met with resistance from the Association of California Schoolhouse Administrators. Laura Preston, a lobbyist with the group, says the bill limits the conclusion-making ability of administrators and that the linguistic communication outlining police roles does non belong in school safe plans, which describe what should occur during an emergency.

The original beak would have required districts to rely on more positive approaches to discipline, such equally restorative justice, and outline specific instances, such as unsafe situations, in which police could go involved in educatee cases. All the same, that requirement was amended in the Appropriations Commission before beingness heard on the Assembly flooring. With the changes, the nib, which passed the Associates on a 71-0 vote on Wednesday, now "would encourage comprehensive school rubber plans to include clear guidelines" for the roles of counselors, administrators, teachers, school police and local police.

Jones-Sawyer'southward legislative managing director, Stephanie Burri, said she hopes to work with country senators to reintroduce some of the language that was cut. "We're trying non to exist confrontational," she said. "We want to have it out of the conjecture most law enforcement existence bad. We desire to clarify the roles of different folks (police and administrators)."

Braeden Weygandt, legislative analyst with Warner & Pank, a consulting group that represents the California Sheriff's Association, said the clan has taken no position on AB 549. John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Police Chiefs Association, did non return messages requesting the clan's position on the bill.

The nib may not seem important to those living in communities where police are present only when they have been called for aid. But students who live in crime- and gang-ridden neighborhoods wait to school as a identify to escape the violence and constabulary presence, one advocate said.

Community organizer Carlos "Elmo" Gomez

Community organizer Carlos "Elmo" Gomez

Carlos "Elmo" Gomez is an organizer with the Community Rights Campaign. He recalls his first high school in Los Angeles, which had a heavy police presence. Students, who were regularly pulled over and questioned by police in their neighborhood, did their all-time to avert the schoolhouse law, he said.

"You would not go to them if something is wrong, fifty-fifty if it's life threatening," he said.

Looking dorsum, he said, "information technology felt similar we were under occupation because it was not just my school that was heavily policed, information technology was the community." If students got in a fight, police got involved and the situation became a criminal one, he said.

When Gomez was shot at during school, he had a pretty proficient idea of who had done information technology, simply he knew if he told police his suspicions, it would accept put him, his family and his friends at run a risk in his neighborhood. Then he remained placidity. "They should have had intervention support, should have had peace builders," he said. The bullets left three holes in his shirt sleeve, but neither he nor anyone else was injured.

After the shooting, Gomez was transferred to Primal Loftier School in Los Angeles, where the atmosphere was very different. "They had new teachers, new guidelines, a new system," he said. "They had gardens and taught in a creative style."

More importantly, there were no police force on the campus even though Central was likewise located in a community with high violence. He remembers a policeman knocking on the door of his classroom, asking to speak to one of the students. The teacher told the policeman that no guns were allowed on campus, including his, and that he needed to talk to the student after schoolhouse. The instructor and so shut the door.

Gomez felt a lot safer at Central Loftier than he had at his previous school. "I take seen that police officers practise not brand schools safer," he said. "It's time to take a different arroyo."

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